Sunday, 15 February 2009

Barack Obama: "I'll make our government open and transparent."

Transcript of the video:(Please watch this video with reference to the video I posted on Friday February 13th, of John Boehner talking about members of Congress having 12 hours, from midnight, to read through 1100 pages of the "Stimulus Bill," before voting on it.)

Barack Obama "Public Will Have 5 Days To Look At Every Bill That Lands On My Desk"

Obama said:

"I'll also be instituting an absolute ???? (can't make out the word) so that no registered lobbyist of this ???? (and again!) can curry favour with members of my administration based on how much they can spend on a fancy dinner.

I'll make our government open and transparent so that anyone can ensure that our business is the people's business.

Just as Louis Brandeis once said, "Sunlight is the greatest disinfectant," and as president I'm gonna make it impossible for Congressmen or lobbyists to slip pork barrel projects (*) or corporate welfare into laws when no one's looking because when I'm president, meetings where laws are written will be more open to the public: no more secrecy. That's a committment I make to you as president.

No more secrecy.

And when there's a bill that ends up on my desk as president, you the public will have five days to look online and find out what's in it before I sign it so that you know what your government's doing.

When there are meetings between lobbyists and a government agency, we'll put as many as po...as many of those meetings as possible online for every American to watch.

When there's a tax bill being debated in Congress, you will know the names of the corporations that would benefit and how much money they would get and we will put every corporate tax break and every pork barrel project online for every American to see and you can decide whther your representative's actually representing you."

The Stimulus Bill broke 7 Obama promises.

1. Make government open and transparent.

2. Make it "impossible" for Congressmen to slip in pork barrel projects.

3. Meetings where laws are written will be more open to the public. (Even Congressional Republicans shut out.)

4. No more secrecy.

5. Public will have 5 days to look at a bill.

6. You’ll know what’s in it.

7. We will put every pork barrel project online.

(*) Pork barrel projects:Typically, "pork" involves funding for government programs whose economic or service benefits are concentrated in a particular area but whose costs are spread among all taxpayers. Public works projects, certain national defense spending projects, and agricultural subsidies are the most commonly cited examples.